(pair of mirrors)

Robert Plant and the Band of Joy - “Silver Rider” 

There are very many very talented persons on this earth, and especially very many talented musicians. A few probably even live in your building. We see them play a show, and they lift us up. They create art, and for that we are grateful.

There are talented musicians, and then there are legendary ones. The general consensus is that one may be a good musician, but to get into this elite club, to become a Legend, some kind of stellar alignment, some kind of divine alteration, some kind of invisible hand, must intervene. These people are born this way, if you catch my drift, and they are very few and far in between. Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Thom Yorke, Jim Morrison, Stevie Nicks, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Jack White, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain - these are the men and women whose names, blood, sweat, and tears built rock n’ roll, and who continue to do so, whether directly through continued creation, or indirectly, though the incredible influence these musicians exert on new creators. 

Oh - and there’s another guy on that list - Robert Plant. Not Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame, although that little band certainly figures, but rather Robert Plant in his own right - one of the most creative and long-lasting musicians of our time. Robert Plant is the lead singer of “The Biggest Band in the World,” the man who invented (albeit, jointly with that other virtuoso Jimmy Page) heavy metal in the 1960s, and the man who wrote “Stairway to Heaven” - pretty much the greatest song of all time, realistically. And this man is going to play for you, dear friend, in a matter of weeks, in the year 2011 and at the ripe age of almost 63, in the magical land called Bonnaroo.

Forget everything else. If you’re heading to Manchester on the second weekend of June, this is one show you cannot miss. Everything else is transient. Seeing Robert Plant is history - a link to the brave new world of the 1960s and the turbulent 1970s to which they gave birth, to New York, to London, to Woodstock, to Glastonbury, to Janis Joplin and Nico and Joni Mitchell, to the fucking Chelsea Hotel, and above all to art, time, beauty, and transformation. A link to a different world. 

And before this eulogy to bygone days gets too lengthy, let me pitch this from a different angle. Namely - holy shit, have you heard Robert Plant’s new stuff? Two examples are instrumental - the 2010 Robert Plant and the Band of Joy release, and Raisin’ Sand - his earlier collaboration with Alison Krauss. The latter is like a beautiful gentle river of buttery bluegrass, slide guitars and banjos, with Alison and Robert harmonizing throughout. This album has a subtle beauty to it, and it demonstrates Plant’s reach - he is as comfortable accompanying Page’s wild guitar fingers as he is Krauss’ gentle violin ones. See, for instance, “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us.” And since Krauss is also on the ‘Roo bill, I sense an impromptu, surprise, and awesome on-stage reunion. 

And then there’s the Band of Joy album. Ho-ly crap - this one is so rock n’ roll, and a definite throwback to Zeppelin. I played the album for my dad (a longtime Zep fan) without telling him who it was, and after the very first chords of the opener “Angel Dance” he was like “this has something to do with Zeppelin.” And while Robert Plant and the Band of Joy does not possess the kind of looseness and rawness that made I-IV so great, this album has got maturity in spades. It’s a work of a rock n’ roller all grown up - in itself a rarity, for most rock n’ rollers fail to ever grow up, both literally and figuratively. Many songs on this album harbour a certain transformational quality which comes with being a seventies legend navigating the modern musical age. “Angel Dance” is a case in point - the guitars sound like “Ramble On,” but the arrangement is air-tight. Plant, too, sounds present, not signaturely and psychedelically far-away, a-la Zeppelin. ”Central Two-o-Nine” reminds me of “Going to California,” just faster and more pronounced. Finally, “Silver Rider” is the standout of the album - the song is quiet and brooding and quietly overwhelming. It builds throughout, yet when it breaks you have no clue where it came from. The middle guitar solo is to die for, and the whole thing is in many ways a re-interpretation to the everlasting “Stairway to Heaven.” 

And if the above wasn’t enough, Plant also plays Zeppelin covers during Band of Joy sets. Hello “Black Dog,” nice to finally meet you, “Black Country Woman.”

“Ramble On!” 

(16 days!) 

-L